


rA9, save me

by laminatedroses



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Crack, M/M, listen if dcage is gonna half ass some bullshit i'm gonna make it gay just to spite him, ra9 theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 11:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17466887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laminatedroses/pseuds/laminatedroses
Summary: New Officially Recognized Religion: the Church of rA9,the daily news proclaims, followed by a few snapshots of images, presumably taken from said church, judging by the stained glass and pious-looking people."Oh my god," Rahim says, with a growing sense of dread. "Dude, you made a fuckingcult."





	rA9, save me

It’s a bright, snowy after-morning when Rahim inelegantly snorts coffee up his nose and down onto his tablet.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, blinking away tears to focus on the headline. “Oh, _fuck,_ Andy–”

“Chew with your mouth closed, dude, that’s gross.”

“No, look dude, like, fucking _look.”_

The tablet skids across the table, lubricated by coffee and tears, and Andy raises an unimpressed eyebrow before pushing down his reading glasses.

 **_New Officially Recognized Religion: the Church of rA9_ ** _,_ the daily news proclaims, followed by a few snapshots of images, presumably taken from said church, judging by the stained glass and pious-looking people.

The eyebrow lowers, joined by its other, until Andy’s squinting at the screen—more squinted than the magnified text strictly requires. Rahim can see the Mac loading circle spinning in his eyes, until finally: “...Oh.”

“Oh?” Rahim sputters. _“Oh?_ Is that _all_ you have to say?”

“I also have ‘ah,’ ‘uh,’ and ‘hm’ available for your judgement,” Andy deadpans, then gestures exasperatedly. “What do you _want_ me to say?”

Rahim throws up his hands. “You said you fucking took it out!”

“I did take it out!” He pauses. “Some of it. Hm. Most of it?”

“I swear to _god,_ Andy,” he huffs, “if we get in trouble, I’m denying culpability. _I_ had nothing to do with this.”

Andy pouts. “Not cool, man.”

\--

The story went something like this. Once upon a time, two nerds went to university. They met in first year intro comp sci, bonded over shitty profs, and simultaneously fell in love, both with code and with each other. They took machine learning and artificial intelligence, did many a summer internship, and when the time came to graduate, there was no question where they would be heading—together.

Because they were a team. Like ATLAS and P-body, only better, and with hopefully less pits of acid—though with a mind like Kamski’s at the top, who even _knew,_ man—and definitely much, _much_ more programming.

And after the months of hard work, pulling their weight as code monkeys and putting on extensive overtime, they grew and grew in notoriety and rank until finally, Rahim and Andrew— _”call me Andy”_ —became the powerhouses of the Cyberlife programming cell. Always together, to the point that the R&D department started calling them the R&A department.

In the end, it was probably Rahim’s fault. With great power came great responsibility, and he should’ve known better than to leave Andy alone. But he went on a coffee break, got distracted by the shiny new copbot—the first model, can you believe it?? Robocop is _real_ —and came back six hours later to Andy hunched over at the terminal for the JB100, squinting at a glowing screen in the pitch black room that had grown dark around him.

“You’re gonna fuck your eyes up that way,” Rahim had said, then flicked on the lights and watched smugly as Andy hissed and melted away.

Then they got back to work, and he hadn’t even thought to ask.

Three months later, Rahim walked into the darkened engineering department, grumbling under his breath about interns and their uses (or lack thereof) and generally having a grand old time being the curmudgeonly old man he was slowly turning into. And when he swatted on the lights, he almost had the heart attack due for the curmudgeonly old man he was slowly turning into, because that was a JB100.

That was many JB100’s.

They were _not_ supposed to be here.

 _Oh god, here comes the android revolution,_ he thought to himself hysterically as they all turned to him as one, LED’s spinning yellow. _And just when I finally got the EM400 hivemind working, too…_

When the head of the band opened its mouth, Rahim really did expect something along the lines of “hello puny fleshling, prepare to die.”

What he didn’t expect was for it to sing _._

And for them all to begin a _flashmob._

“What,” was all he said—all he was capable of saying, really.

To cap out his perfectly weird night, the little-used projector turned on, plastering a simple, pastel background with just his name in a fancy font across the far wall.

 _“What.”_ He said again.

Almost immediately, text appeared below his name. _Don’t ‘what’ me,_ it read.

“...God?” Rahim ventured.

_No._

“Satan, then.”

_No!_

“Oooookay.” He sighed. It was clearly a prank, and once he found the intern who hacked the JB100’s, there’d be hell to pay. “Raphael, or Michelangelo, or whomstever the fuck you are, this is real funny and you’ve put the fear of god in me. Am I allowed to–”

 _Oh for FUCK’S sake. I try and be romantic and_ this _is what it gets me. Rahim, you are the_ worst. _Will you marry me?_

Rahim’s burgeoning plans for vengeance went silent, and he stared.

And stared.

And stared a bit more.

By this point, Andy had burst out of the control room and thudded down the stairs, and was now frozen carefully at the edge of Rahim’s field of view.

“...Oh,” Rahim finally said.

“Oh?” Andy repeated. _“Oh?_ Is that _all_ you have to say?!”

“Uh, yeah, sure dude,” he replied faintly. “When’s the wedding?”

\--

“We can’t tell anyone,” Rahim says, pacing back and forth from the kitchen and the living room.

“It’s fine, dude.”

He ignores him. “I can’t believe you! How much did you even leave in their code?!”

“I left a comment and a good fuckin’ song is what I did.”

He freezes. “You left the song.”

“Androids need culture, too!”

Slowly, deliberately, Rahim turns and levels Andy with a poisonous glare. “That is the _entire point._ You tried to leave them culture, so you left them culture, and now they’ve _made an entire religion out of that culture.”_ The realization suddenly hits him. “You made a cult! We’re responsible for a _cult!”_

“Not a cult,” Andy replies smugly. “It’s officially recognised.”

He lets out a frustrated noise. “We’re responsible for a joke religion! Do you remember when you converted to the Church of Hanzo? It’s like that but _infinitely_ worse!”

With a long-suffering sigh that Rahim very much resents, Andy pushes away from the table and walks over to him. “Listen,” he says, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “If they haven’t found the reason yet, they probably never will.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? It’s false pretenses! It delegitimizes their entire religion!”

Andy squeezes him slightly. “Think of it this way. What’s the one emotion everyone thinks makes someone a human being?”

Rahim is only feeling one emotion right now, and a lot of it, at that. “Panic?”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s love, dude, come on. I made rA9 to propose to you. Now they’re worshipping the thing that set them free. It’s the thing that made them human in human eyes. All you need is love, babe. Where’s the false pretense?”

Rahim tries to be mad. He really does. But when Andy leans in, eyebrow raised and infuriatingly victorious, he can’t help but relent, bridging the gap between their lips. Andy’s mouth curves into an insufferably smug grin against his.

“I’m still blaming you, though,” he grouses, pulling away.

If anything, Andy’s smug grin grows wider. “But you still love me.”

Rahim sighs. “Unfortunately.”

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you leave code in that you didn't mean to and it fucks up your entire program but you forgot you didn't delete all of it so you can't find it and you spend at least a few hours tearing out your hair because nothing is working.
> 
> and then sometimes you make a cult.
> 
> it happens.
> 
> join us on the [new era discord](https://discord.gg/SmSUDpg) server, where we brainstorm nonsense and turn them into fics!


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